Share My City Impact Projects (Breda, Dordrecht)
Share My City has developed a unique platform: the postcode check enables residents, at a mouse click, to find out which measures for the infiltration, storage or reuse of rain water are appropriate for their living situation. The platform indicates how each measure works, what maintenance it requires, how much water it will store, the costs, and potential subsidies, if any. It also helps municipalities gain insight into private space water storage capacities.
The Share My City platform is further developed under the name Samen Waterproof.
Climate change and urbanisation are putting increasing pressure on urban areas. Waterlogging is causing a lot of damage. Since government bodies only have limited scope for measures, residents must do their part in terms of urban water resilience. The Share My City platform shows residents which measures they can take, geared to their own living situation. Rather than remaining a vague ambition, water storage on private property thus becomes quite concrete and easily achieved.
The Share My City platform and the postcode check instrument have been developed for the Ulvenhout district in the city of Breda. A similar intention to implement has been set down for district(s) faced with considerable waterlogging in the municipality of Dordrecht. In principle, the instruments can be deployed in every municipality in the Netherlands. The platform is flexible and thus easily adapts to a wide range of municipal ambitions, even at the district level. It can also be adapted to or integrated into other websites. However, a limited investment is required in each municipality in order to integrate municipality-specific data into the postcode check instrument, to adapt this data to the municipal ambitions, programmes, and communication methods, and to maintain the tool.
More insight into private space
The platform is an efficient instrument for municipalities as well. It provides insight into private space capacities and an answer to the question as to the maximum volume of water to be stored. It also answers the question of how much water a municipality can store if all the homes were fitted with infiltration crates. The postcode check links the “private space potential” to locations requiring water storage. This information is subsequently combined with the climate impact atlas, in order to gain insight into waterlogging and other climate effects (flood risk, heat stress, and drought). Residents immediately get a picture of what they can do on their own premises and how much they will gain by implementing such measures. In addition, it helps municipal authorities in their policy development.
Step-by-step plan for municipalities
The Share My City Impact Project has demonstrated that private space water storage can contribute a great deal to resolving urban waterlogging. In addition, it turns out to be important to first obtain clarity regarding demand (storage requirements in each municipality or district) and supply (available private space storage capacities in each municipality or district). Share My City can easily be upscaled to other municipalities and qualifies as an efficient policy development instrument for municipal authorities. Furthermore, the Impact Project has produced many concrete results, such as a feasibility study (pdf, 2.1 MB), the platform with its postcode check for Breda, and a survey among residents providing insight into requirements and conditions for participation among individual citizens. The survey has been elaborated for Breda; its use in other municipalities only requires a few simple adaptations. In the near future, the municipality of Breda will be commissioning the residents’ survey; the results will be published here at a later date. Furthermore, the project has developed a step-by-step plan for municipalities to introduce private space water storage using the Share My City platform; see image below.
Contact persons
Anna Goede
Witteveen+Bos
06-86895348
anna.goede@witteveenbos.com
Ivar Roefs
Technisch Specialist Stedelijk Water Gemeente Breda
06-21302951
i.roefs@breda.nl